


Halfway Home

by downuptime



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-23
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 13:50:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downuptime/pseuds/downuptime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Yinsen leaned in and murmured, “You’re burning up, but you’re not hallucinating, Tony. They’re real. They’re here to get you out.”</i> </p><p>It was supposed to have been easy: build the suit, try not to be discovered, blast his way through the guns and the men, then get the hell out of there alive. </p><p>Except, it didn't go as planned. </p><p>Now Tony has to find his way back to the land of the living, and he doesn't know how.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halfway Home

**Author's Note:**

> There is a distinct difference between rescuing someone and saving them.

When they burst in through the door, Tony laughed out loud.

 

He bent over, gripped his sides, and laughed out loud. Very loudly.

 

Because honestly, Captain America?

 

Of all the variations he’d experienced, this one took the cake. He could deal with Pepper sailing in with her heels, or Rhodey barging in with the army, navy _and_ air force and enough ammunition to take a nation out. Maybe even dear ol’ Dad.

 

But Captain America? _Seriously_?

 

Captain America was dead. He could still remember dear, dear Howard telling him so. It was the only time he’d ever seen his dad talking to him with eyes that were not stone cold.

 

That was how Tony knew he was hallucinating, _again_.

 

So he laughed, and he laughed, and he laughed, because honestly, that was the only thing he could do to make this whole fucking thing more bearable. He hadn’t built anything in months, not since the failed escape attempt.

 

And judging from the looks Captain America was exchanging with that smoking hot red-head who was _extremely_ easy on the eyes ( _dear lord_ one thing was going well for him, at least: the first lady he sees in months is an exquisite specimen), that was not the reaction they were expecting.

 

Tony laughed harder. What, did they expect him to run into their arms and beg for help? He knew better than that. He usually ended up flat on his face or sprawled against the rocky wall when he ran to them. Or rather, ran _through_ them. Better not to get his hopes up. Better to laugh it off. It made things way more bearable.

 

“Tony,” Yinsen lay his hand on Tony’s shoulder, and squeezed gently. “Stop. They are real.”

 

That just sucked even further, because yeah, so what if he’d been talking to a dead man for the past nine months? That was fine, because he had been alone in the cave, and no one knew, and no one would care that he was imagining Yinsen out of loneliness and sheer desperation. Or maybe it was guilt. He had a tough time deciding which it was now.

 

But now… now he was hallucinating for real. Because he didn’t want to fucking imagine Yinsen right now in front of Captain America, you know? And that whole bunch of people kicking the asses of his captors. They looked weird – was that a huge-ass moving green hulk-y thing? – but that didn’t mean he could be C-R-A-Z-Y around them.

 

Yinsen leaned in and murmured, “You’re burning up, but you’re not hallucinating, Tony. They’re real. They’re here to get you out.”

 

Right. He forgot about the pneumonia and the raging fever.

 

Tony stopped laughing abruptly and sank to his knees, barely registering the pain from the bad knee, coughing and coughing and coughing, his arms wrapped awkwardly around his torso. Before he knew it, Captain America’s arms were the only things preventing him from smacking his face flat against the floor.

 

“It’s time to go back into the land of the living,” Yinsen whispered. Tony made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. _Now_ the shit was going to hit the fan. This wasn’t something he had prepared for. “Where you belong. To Pepper, and Rhodey, and Happy, and Obi. To your life.”

 

“You look just like your dad.” Captain America’s arms were warm and soothing and Jesus, even his voice was the embodiment of the American ideal. “You’re safe now, Tony.”

 

Only two words could come to Tony’s mind. It vaguely occurred to him that it wasn’t the nicest thing to say to Captain America, he knew, but well, he deserved it. Because:

 

a) the tone of voice Captain America used – admiration, almost love – when he mentioned Howard the dude was unacceptable. And,

 

c) It took them one whole fucking year to find him, during which he tried to build a suit to escape, only to fail miserably, resulting in the unnecessary death of perhaps his third true friend in his entire life, and who had taught him far more than his own dad had ever taught him in just three months, in a cave, in the middle of Afghanistan.

 

b) Tony Stark did not look like Howard Stark anymore. Not with the scar on his face.

 

He was rich, filthy rich, an absolute essential to American peacetime. A national treasure. At least, that’s what they implied him when they fawned over him and held dinners for him and sucked up to him. He gave them whatever they wanted: missiles, guns, all the fucking tech he invented. And yet, _a year_. Screw them. Screw them all.

 

“Fuck you.”

 

And then he promptly passed out. 


End file.
